Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man

 
option 
to buy if you let us. Don’t be the Baltic Avenue on the 
Monopoly board game—the one that anyone can just roll 
the dice, land on, and pay a couple of dollars to chill on with-
out any obligations or worries. You’ve got to go to Broadway 
on the game board; make your man round the corner and land 
on that high end property—recognize that you’re prime real 
estate that’s for purchase only.
Note: This is 
not 
about asking your man to marry you. It’s 
about taking yourself out of that 1945 mentality, where you 
stand around waiting for some guy to beg you for your hand in 
marriage. You’ve had it drummed into your head so cold—that 
“I’ll never ask a man to marry me” thing—that you’ve lost all 
sensibility when it comes to getting what 
you
want. But it’s not 
1945 anymore! Back in the day when my parents and their 
generation were courting and getting married, women could 
afford to wait around for the man to get it together because 
really, the options for men were limited. If a guy lived in a 
farmhouse, the next farmhouse was two miles away, and that 
one might not have a girl in it—just two more boys—so he’d 
have to walk another two miles to actually see a potential 
mate, much less find 
the
one. And when they courted, they 
courted
; he had to walk over there, write little messages on 
rocks on the way over so everybody knew his intentions, leave 

---

a note by the tree and send up smoke signals so the girl knew 
what was up. Oh, the courtship was far more romantic, be-
cause the men knew they had to behave properly—not just for 
their intendeds, but their intendeds’ daddies. The boys had to 
go over to the house, ask permission to sit in the room to-
gether, and the adults were present because there weren’t any 
extra rooms for them to sit in alone. And that courting culmi-
nated in the men pulling the fathers aside and, with their 
shoulders squared and chins up, asking the fathers for their 
daughters’ hands in marriage. And whatever the father said is 
what went.
Now women have been taught all their lives that if a man 
loves you, he will court you and ask for your hand in marriage. 
The problem with this is that you’ve been trained to use 
twentieth- century logic in twenty-first-century situations. 
There’s no slim pickings of women out here—women are at 
every turn, working with men, living in apartment buildings 
with them, riding the bus and trains with them, hanging out at 
the clubs with them. Technology’s such that you can contact a 
woman without ever even seeing her. It’s not 1945 anymore—
you can’t hang on to those old ways. This, “If he wants to 
marry me, he’ll ask me” thing has got to stop. Because we’re 
not going to ask you when you’re ready—we’re going to play 
with you until you give us your requirements and standards, 
and stand by them. I’m not telling you to get on bended knee. 
I’m telling you to set a timeline for the ring and the date, and 
tell the man you want to be married to what it is.

---

I recognize that this is hard. But let me tell you what’s really 
hard: dating/living with/having a baby with a man who has no 
intention of marrying you and eight years up the road, he walks 
out and you’re left to find a new man/pay all the bills after years 
of splitting them with someone else/raising those kids on your 
own. Oh, it can be done. But recognize just how hard that will 
be. All I’m suggesting is that you get the little uncomfortable 
moments out of the way early—let him know now what you 
want and expect. Make clear to him what you’re worth, and 
that you come at a cost; tell him how much you’re worth like 
you’re about to list yourself on eBay for a million dollars. Break 
down your value: say, “I respect you, I adore you, I’m affection-
ate, I pay attention to you, I’m punctual, I’m kind, I’m loyal, I’ll 
have your children and love them madly—and all of this is 
available for a handsome sum. I need 
your
time, loyalty, support, 
affection, attention, punctuality, kindness, gentleman ways—I 
need the doors opened, chairs pulled out, your respect, and 
above all else, your love. I also expect a diamond ring and a 
walk down the aisle.”
Now when a man hears this, he’s going to pay attention, 
because you’ve placed a high value on yourself. He’ll see that 
and question the situation: “Is she worth all of that?” If your 
cost is too high, he will move on. But you don’t want that guy 
anyway, right? He’s just looking to rent you. People who rent 
don’t care anything about the property they’re with—they let it 
get run down, beat up, don’t care what it looks like. They use 
the space, and when they find something better, they decline 

---

the new lease and they move on out and on to the next rental.
You want the guy who is ready to make the Broadway pur-
chase—the one who’s looking to move in, stay awhile, take care 
of the lawn, make sure the plumbing is right, paint the walls, 
add furniture, pay the mortgage faithfully. You know, make 
your house a home. That guy right there? He’s the one who will 
take responsibility and pop the question, like you need him to.
After all, boys shack. Men build homes.
Demand that he be a man about it. If he’s not in love with 
you, he’s not going to go for any of this, so now you know. But 
if he loves you, he will profess it, he will provide for you, and 
he will protect you. If he really loves you, the ultimate profes-
sion is, “This is my wife.” You can start with, “This is my girl,” 
or “This is my baby’s mother,” or even, “This is my fiancée.” 
But after a couple of years, you need to move beyond this fian-
cée title. At the very least, you deserve clarity. Because women 
do not do well without clarity. The thing you all want to know 
is: Where’s this relationship going? Do you love me? Am I the 
one? What do you see for us?
That’s it in a nutshell—every man knows this is coming up 
the road for him. He may not be ready for it now, but if he’s not 
ready for it now and you are, then you don’t have a good match, 
do you? So why waste all of your valuable years on something 
that’s not going where you want it to go? Instead, you should 
seek out someone else who wants to go where you’re going. I 
truly believe that’s why there are so many women in their 

---

midthirties unmarried—because somewhere along the line, 
they just didn’t put their foot down and move on. But I can tell 
you from personal experience: put your foot down, set some 
standards, and watch how fast he falls in line. The reason I’m 
married to Marjorie today is because she had a timeline, some 
requirements, and some standards. I saw them early in our rela-
tionship; I saw them on the night our relationship was about to 
end; I saw them when I got her back. I’ll tell you this much, if 
I still had the factory job at Ford and she needed $400 of my 
$600 paycheck, I would have given it to her.
I want to protect her.
And she makes me proud to be her man.
You can have this, too. Don’t be another heartbreak story. 
Start putting yourself first—get where you want to be, and 
make your man be all that he can be. Remember this: the 
number one cause of failure in this country is the 
fear
of failure. 
Fear paralyzes you from taking action. Don’t be afraid to lose 
him, because if a man truly loves you, he’s not going 
anywhere.

---

---